Family Reunion at Jack and Sharon's 2007

This past weekend we drove up to Trinity County for the Eggleston Family Reunion. I always love going up there- it's basically just a few days of relaxing, swimming in the pool and river, hanging out and eating.
Shawn and I unfortunately left at 3:00 on Friday afternoon so what is usually a 5 hour drive, took 8 hours due to traffic. Blah!

I think the dogs had some sense of where we were going b/c they were sooo excited to get there.
They love it there. There is lots of open land and tons of other dogs and they just run all day long when they are there. In fact, after we arrived late that night and went to bed, Morgan woke us up at about 4:00 in the morning whining and crying. I thought maybe she had to go to the bathroom so I got up and let her out, but no- she was just excited to run around. Didn't seem to be the slightest bit aware of the fact that it was 4 in the morning and not the time for playing.

So Saturday always includes a trip in inner tubes down the river.
They have a ton of them- enough for each person to have their own, and the beer to have it's own tube!
Every year I threaten not to go because I just can't stand how cold the water is, but then I always feel like a party-pooper so then I always go. But this year I stayed behind and just hung out by the pool with kids and Candice and Holly- It was warm and lovely.
I also got to witness the various ways to clean oneself after eating an Oreo.
Catcher uses his teeth on his lower lip creating strips, and Tyler uses his lips all the way around creating a ring. Fascinating.

Brad made sure not to drink too much while on the river this year b/c he didn't want me to have a chance to take any "terrible" pictures of him like I did last year. Luckily he looks great here
and hopefully everyone can just forget about that other picture.

I just got this new little template so I made my first collage with it- cute huh! (Click on it so you can see things a little better)
And speaking of men being men. . .
oh whoops, wrong picture- I meant this one
So anyway, there was lots of lounging around
although when some heav. . .more mature people tried this, it didn't work out as well.
There was also a fair amount of wrestling, water gun fighting, and trampoline jumping.
I sneaked up on these two girls while they didn't think anyone was watching them pick berries.
but then I think at least one of them discovered I was watching, and that I had a camera.

Here's some shots from my 3-minute Photo Session with Brad and Candice

I mentioned there were lots of dogs there- 11 to be exact- and that was even without Addie and Hudson. You'd think there would have been a few more "disagreements" with that many dogs who aren't used to being together, but the only major one happened because of a neighbor dog that wandered over a few times. But after he did this to Oso :( ,
the owner was called to come get his dog and then everybody seemed to get along just fine.

Here's a few of them:
Clancy I sometimes want to sneak into my car and take home.
Or maybe just see about working out a trade for this one
Oso, Briana, and Kelly
And then there's Miss Cookie
I was planning on taking pics of all of them, but I got distracted. Oh well- woulda been cute. . .

Catcher needed a bit of extra cuddle time due to some rather upsetting experiences
like when Tatanka didn't want to play with him, and told him so by snapping at him. He didn't incur any physical injury but when Amber was asking him if he had any ouchies, he pointed to his heart. Then the next day he pointed to Tatanka and told Holly "That's the dog that bwoke my hawat"
There was also the time when his parents made him balance this plate on his head for a few hours
and had him fetch beers for everyone
but he accidentally got the wrong beer and so Uncle Rusty had to "teach him a lesson".
:)

But other than that it was just another clam weekend in the Mountains.

Theater Unlimited- Relationships 2007

Every year Theater Unlimited, the group that I volunteer with does a show in June. This year it was a variety of shorter skits, plays, and dances all based on the theme of relationships. From about February until June I brought my camera quite a bit and took pictures of the preparation process.
I took some of those pictures and put this slide show together for the show last month.

Mirabel '07

For the past several years we have used the anniversary of this nation's birth as a reason to go to the one and only Mirabel- trailer park extraodinaire! And believe me, every stereotype you might have in your head when it comes to trailer parks, Mirabel lives up to it and more.

Anyway,
This year's crew:
This year's t-shirt design:
This year's best tan- it looks like maybe Alex won:

This year's best meal:
I was almost just going to leave it at this (Betsy and Steve's tin foil dinners),
but that would be a lie because I think I created the new best meal when I invented the Rice Crispy S'mores. (by the way, when I decided to be a vegetarian, nobody told me that marshmallows were meat. So since I didn't sign up with that understanding, those are still part of my diet, at least when camping). Anyway, the Rice Crispy S'more- Whoa!!!

This year's best portrait (alex again):

This year's safest and most popular activity: Sudoku

This year's most dangerous and disliked activity:
I know it looks safe enough, but all it takes is just a little bit of current going in just the right direction and a couple of uncoordinated paddlers and you have yourself a capsized canoe with my $3000 camera in the water! Yeah, that kinda put a damper on the whole trip for me, but what can you do? Bringing it along wasn't my brightest idea. I have since sent it in to Canon and gotten the word back that it's a goner. Luckily they were able to save the lens though so that's good! The funny part of all this is that literally about 5 seconds before it happened I leaned back and said to Betsy, "If something happens and you need to choose between saving the dog and the camera, save the camera". Of course I was kidding and luckily she knew it cause she went for T! (T is still smiling here as the picture was taken before the accident)
Tatanka was NOT a fan of the water even before this experience. He is really terrified and I'm a terrible mother for forcing him to play my games. But I especially felt bad after this brief but traumatic swim he had to take. He was so defiant about getting back in the boat after it had flipped. I really did feel bad that I had to make him. To read about this story from his point of view- see his blog
Tatanka would have been much better prepared had he been properly equipped (life jacket) for the adventure like Milo was.

Tatanka was pretty beat from his trip and really just wanted to sleep the entire rest of the day and night. Shawn and Morgan had no problems being supportive of nap-time

Shortly after getting back from canoing, it was that perfect time of day when I love to take pictures- but I was sans fancy camera :( I did my best with the point-and-shoot though.
Milo was pretty tuckered out as well (he went for his own dive from the canoe, but he made that leap of his own choice- although I can't say I'm sure he knew what he was doing) Anyway, they both managed to wake up just long enough to participate in this potato-fest, but then it was right back to sleep again.

That night all the girls wanted to sit by Betsy around the campfire since she was "doing hair".
It was just like Girls Camp! While she did a really nice job, I'm not sure that the two French Braids look does much for me trying to look my age.
Anyway, swimming camera aside, it was another lovely year at Mirabel.

Steve and Laurie- San Francisco

Haven't been doing too good so far with my new resolution to post images from recent shoots.
But here's to yet another try.

Here are a few shots from Steve and Laurie's wedding back in May. They were such a cute couple- honestly so nice to work with. Both of them kept checking in with us throughout the day, making sure we were doing OK and had gotten enough to eat and such. So sweet.

Laurie got these great panties from Victoria Secret that said Bride in sparkley sequence and came with their own veil!

Their dog Conan made a guest appearance at the hotel room so that he might wish his mommy good luck on her big day.


I think this picture is so sweet. It was a quick embrace with her mom (who looked like one of the bridesmaids!) before saying goodbye until they saw each other at the church.




The small size does nothing for this picture, but as both their mothers were lighting candles during the ceremony, Steve and Laurie gave each other the sweetest glances of absolute happiness and gratitude.


This random dog in the park followed them, barking his little head off, for like 5 minutes. It was hilarious; apparently he doesn't like veils.





The first dance.